NASA's LADEE mission caused a sensation in the Eastern United States on its way to the moon. Friday's launch was visible from Virginia to Massachusetts, and the fireball was captured by photographers and videographers in many locations. Crowds gathered in Times Square in New York and on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to watch. The photograph above was taken by NASA's Ed Campion in Annapolis, MD.

The launch turned the hashtag #NASA into the top trending topic on Twitter in the U.S. late Friday. The launch coverage on NASA TV went out in 66,000 webcast streams. For the first time that the NASA.gov team is aware of, the majority of peak traffic to the site for a live event came from mobile devices instead of desktop computers.